Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

How Intelligent Design Hurts Conservatives (By making us look like crackpots)
The New Republic ^ | 8/16/05 | Ross Douthat

Posted on 08/18/2005 5:17:34 PM PDT by curiosity

The appeal of "intelligent design" to the American right is obvious. For religious conservatives, the theory promises to uncover God's fingerprints on the building blocks of life. For conservative intellectuals in general, it offers hope that Darwinism will yet join Marxism and Freudianism in the dustbin of pseudoscience. And for politicians like George W. Bush, there's little to be lost in expressing a skepticism about evolution that's shared by millions.

In the long run, though, intelligent design will probably prove a political boon to liberals, and a poisoned chalice for conservatives. Like the evolution wars in the early part of the last century, the design debate offers liberals the opportunity to portray every scientific battle--today, stem-cell research, "therapeutic" cloning, and end-of-life issues; tomorrow, perhaps, large-scale genetic engineering--as a face-off between scientific rigor and religious fundamentalism. There's already a public perception, nurtured by the media and by scientists themselves, that conservatives oppose the "scientific" position on most bioethical issues. Once intelligent design runs out of steam, leaving its conservative defenders marooned in a dinner-theater version of Inherit the Wind, this liberal advantage is likely to swell considerably.

And intelligent design will run out of steam--a victim of its own grand ambitions. What began as a critique of Darwinian theory, pointing out aspects of biological life that modification-through-natural-selection has difficulty explaining, is now foolishly proposed as an alternative to Darwinism. On this front, intelligent design fails conspicuously--as even defenders like Rick Santorum are beginning to realize--because it can't offer a consistent, coherent, and testable story of how life developed. The "design inference" is a philosophical point, not a scientific theory: Even if the existence of a designer is a reasonable inference to draw from the complexity of, say, a bacterial flagellum, one would still need to explain how the flagellum moved from design to actuality.

And unless George W. Bush imposes intelligent design on American schools by fiat and orders the scientific establishment to recant its support for Darwin, intelligent design will eventually collapse--like other assaults on evolution that failed to offer an alternative--under the weight of its own overreaching.

If liberals play their cards right, this collapse could provide them with a powerful rhetorical bludgeon. Take the stem-cell debate, where the great questions are moral, not scientific--whether embryonic human life should be created and destroyed to prolong adult human life. Liberals might win that argument on the merits, but it's by no means a sure thing. The conservative embrace of intelligent design, however, reshapes the ideological battlefield. It helps liberals cast the debate as an argument about science, rather than morality, and paint their enemies as a collection of book-burning, Galileo-silencing fanatics.

This would be the liberal line of argument anyway, even without the controversy surrounding intelligent design. "The president is trapped between religion and science over stem cells," declared a Newsweek cover story last year; "Religion shouldn't undercut new science," the San Francisco Chronicle insisted; "Leadership in 'therapeutic cloning' has shifted abroad," the New York Times warned, because American scientists have been "hamstrung" by "religious opposition"--and so on and so forth. But liberalism's science-versus-religion rhetoric is only likely to grow more effective if conservatives continue to play into the stereotype by lining up to take potshots at Darwin.

Already, savvy liberal pundits are linking bioethics to the intelligent design debate. "In a world where Koreans are cloning dogs," Slate's Jacob Weisberg wrote last week, "can the U.S. afford--ethically or economically--to raise our children on fraudulent biology?" (Message: If you're for Darwin, you're automatically for unfettered cloning research.) Or again, this week's TNR makes the pretty-much-airtight "case against intelligent design"; last week, the magazine called opponents of embryo-destroying stem cell research "flat-earthers." The suggested parallel is obvious: "Science" is on the side of evolution and on the side of embryo-killing.

Maureen Dowd, in her inimitable way, summed up the liberal argument earlier this year:

Exploiting God for political ends has set off powerful, scary forces in America: a retreat on teaching evolution, most recently in Kansas; fights over sex education . . . a demonizing of gays; and a fear of stem cell research, which could lead to more of a "culture of life" than keeping one vegetative woman hooked up to a feeding tube.

Terri Schiavo, sex education, stem cell research--on any issue that remotely touches on science, a GOP that's obsessed with downing Darwin will be easily tagged as medieval, reactionary, theocratic. And this formula can be applied to every new bioethical dilemma that comes down the pike. Earlier this year, for instance, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) issued ethical guidelines for research cloning, which blessed the creation of human-animal "chimeras"--animals seeded with human cells. New York Times reporter Nicholas Wade, writing on the guidelines, declared that popular repugnance at the idea of such creatures is based on "the pre-Darwinian notion that species are fixed and penalties [for cross-breeding] are severe." In other words, if you're opposed to creating pig-men--carefully, of course, with safeguards in place (the NAS guidelines suggested that chimeric animals be forbidden from mating)--you're probably stuck back in the pre-Darwinian ooze with Bishop Wilberforce and William Jennings Bryan.

There's an odd reversal-of-roles at work here. In the past, it was often the right that tried to draw societal implications from Darwinism, and the left that stood against them. And for understandable reasons: When people draw political conclusions from Darwin's theory, they're nearly always inegalitarian conclusions. Hence social Darwinism, hence scientific racism, hence eugenics.

Which is why however useful intelligent design may be as a rhetorical ploy, liberals eager to claim the mantle of science in the bioethics battle should beware. The left often thinks of modern science as a child of liberalism, but if anything, the reverse is true. And what scientific thought helped to forge--the belief that all human beings are equal--scientific thought can undermine as well. Conservatives may be wrong about evolution, but they aren't necessarily wrong about the dangers of using Darwin, or the National Academy of Sciences, as a guide to political and moral order.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Government; Philosophy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: creationism; crevolist; education; evolution; hesaidcrackhehheh; immaturetitle; intelligentdesign; politics; science
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 941-953 next last
To: MizSterious
Most of the scientific community is actually moving toward intelligent design

Really? Care to back up that assertion?

41 posted on 08/18/2005 5:34:20 PM PDT by curiosity (.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: PatrickHenry
"And unless Even if George W. Bush imposes intelligent design on American schools by fiat and orders the scientific establishment to recant its support for Darwin, intelligent design will eventually collapse--like other assaults on evolution that failed to offer an alternative--under the weight of its own overreaching."
42 posted on 08/18/2005 5:34:34 PM PDT by AntiGuv ("Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: little jeremiah

Yes, and I'm sure that if Maureen Dowd came out against Cancer, you would say that "cancer is good."


43 posted on 08/18/2005 5:34:39 PM PDT by Clemenza (Pirro is Hillary with an (R))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: curiosity
It helps liberals cast the debate as an argument about science, rather than morality, and paint their enemies as a collection of book-burning, Galileo-silencing fanatics.

Book burning? Perhaps the author forgot about the Nazis, as in National Socialists

44 posted on 08/18/2005 5:35:03 PM PDT by 6SJ7
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Prime Choice

I believe its a complex as is our creation. Evo's hide behind micro evolution such as slight changes in a bird's feathers or beaks and then extrapolate that to macro evolution for which there is little to no evidence. They prefer to argue it as a pacxkage deal - you swallow all of it because of evidence of micro evolution. Its the kind of sophistry game democrats play.


45 posted on 08/18/2005 5:35:09 PM PDT by plain talk
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: Just mythoughts
I read the Book and there is nothing in it about evolving from a formerly believed primordial cold, recently discovered hot soup.

There is nothing in it about nuclear energy either.

46 posted on 08/18/2005 5:35:18 PM PDT by WildTurkey (When will CBS Retract and Apologize?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: curiosity

If believing in God and believing in the Bible makes me a crackpot, then I proudly accept that label.


47 posted on 08/18/2005 5:36:30 PM PDT by mlc9852
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: MizSterious

ID has never stood up to the scientific method. ID's proponents should be viewed as seriously as alchemists and baseball card economists.


48 posted on 08/18/2005 5:36:46 PM PDT by Clemenza (Pirro is Hillary with an (R))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: syriacus
Was what I was taught the same as "Intelligent Design"?

No. Intelligent Design proponents assert that the universe is too "complex" to have come into existence unless it was deliberately designed by some "designer" whose exact properties are totally unstated except that it (or they) is (or are) capable of creating universes and things in it. Ultimately it comes down to them arrogantly declaring supreme knowledge of how the universe works and deducing that because they can't work out the natural processes required for certain events to occur, an intelligent agent must be responsible.

ID as it is typically presented has no religious overtones, though you'll usually find that those pushing it are trying to secretly push a religious agenda.
49 posted on 08/18/2005 5:36:51 PM PDT by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]

To: curiosity

The flaws of mankind are too obvious and too plentiful. These flaws alone should have squashed the ID theory.


50 posted on 08/18/2005 5:37:35 PM PDT by soupcon
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: syriacus
Was what I was taught the same as "Intelligent Design"?

No. "Intelligent design" is the claim that certain things, like bacterial flagella or the blood clotting mechanism are too complex to have evolved through Darwinian processes. In other words, it is anti-Darwinian.

It is not to be confused with the philosophical belief that God designed the universe so that intelligent life would evolve. Nor is it to be confused with the belief that God designed through the use of natural processes, like mutation and natural selection.

It is actually the assertion that man's orgin required SUPERNATURAL intervention, and further, that this can be scientifically demonstrated.

It is, of course, pure garbage.

51 posted on 08/18/2005 5:37:53 PM PDT by curiosity (.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]

To: curiosity

A lot of people think it does.


52 posted on 08/18/2005 5:38:00 PM PDT by mlc9852
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: curiosity

Your problem, with your crackpot theory, is that you don't realize how many scientists have said there MUST be some form of intelligent design. Some of them ex-atheists, some from Hindu and Buddhist faiths, and even some among what's termed "new agers." So many from so many different walks of life, the majority of which are NOT Christians, have said the same thing based on the scientific evidence.


53 posted on 08/18/2005 5:38:21 PM PDT by MizSterious (Now, if only we could convince them all to put on their bomb-vests and meet in Mecca...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: pcx99
the fact that if the "settings" of the universe were off by a billionth of a billionth

Add another billionth to the fraction to get in the ballpark. The universe of the Big Bang with inflation is so much bigger than the Hubble volume that the Hubble volume could be overlooked as nothing more than a grain of sand in the entire earth. The universe can look flat when such a microscopic portion is looked at by itself.

54 posted on 08/18/2005 5:38:34 PM PDT by RightWhale (Withdraw from the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty and open the Land Office)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: soupcon
Yup. As I've said on other threads, Intelligent Design is even worse theology than it is science.
55 posted on 08/18/2005 5:38:40 PM PDT by curiosity (.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: curiosity

Who cares what they think? They already call conservative crackpots.

What does this writer want? Popularity? Geez.


56 posted on 08/18/2005 5:39:15 PM PDT by Fledermaus (I wish those on the Left would just do us all a favor and take themselves out of their misery.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: curiosity
How Intelligent Design Hurts Conservatives (By making us look like crackpots)

Sorry, but I'll take my chances looking like a crackpot. Calling people like Michael Denton and Michael Behe "crackpots" basically makes anybody doing such namecalling look like an idiot in my book.

57 posted on 08/18/2005 5:39:18 PM PDT by tamalejoe
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: bvw
Do hardline evolution-backers accept Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand" in economics? Do they appreciate Michelangelo's Pieta, or Da Vinci's amazing scribblings of inventions?

Do they drive German cars? Or Japanese cars? Or even 55 Chevys, or mega-hp pickups?

They must understand what design is, and how much work goes in achieving it.

Exactly.

If one of our Mars rovers discovers a city on Mars are scientists going to assume that the rocks "evolved" into the buildings, or will they see that an intelligent design took place?

I'd bet on the latter.

58 posted on 08/18/2005 5:39:38 PM PDT by RJL
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: curiosity

Most people think both ID and evolution should be taught and debated in school. So this whole argument is bogus.


59 posted on 08/18/2005 5:39:39 PM PDT by The Ghost of FReepers Past (The repenting soul is the victorious soul)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: mlc9852
If believing in God and believing in the Bible makes me a crackpot, then I proudly accept that label.

Nope. What makes you a crackpot is disbelieving the scientific evidence for evolution. And yes, you can believe in all three things: God, evolution, and the Bible.

60 posted on 08/18/2005 5:40:26 PM PDT by curiosity (.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 941-953 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson